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Billy Colman is hard working and determined ten-year-old boy who lives in the Ozark Mountains. He lives with his mother, father, and two sisters, in a log house near the Illinois River. Billy loves to hunt and explore the hills and river bottoms and dreams of one day owning his own coon hounds. His family is poor, and cannot afford to buy animals. One day while exploring an old fishermen’s camp, Billy found a magazine with an advertisement offering a pair of Redbone Coonhound pups for $50.00. By saving his money from selling fruit and bait to fishermen, Billy saved the money he needed to buy the pups.
When it was time to get the puppies, Billy walked the 20 miles to town to get them. On his way home he stopped for the night in a cave. There he saw the names Dan and Ann carved on a tree and decided to name the puppies Dan and Little Ann.
With the help of his grandfather, Billy learned to trap a coon so that he could use the hide to train his new pups. Using information he gathered from listening to the stories of old coon hunters, Billy taught his dogs everything he could. By the time hunting season arrived he and his dogs were ready. Dan was a strong dog and ready to fight and Little Ann proved to be the brains of the team. Dan and Little Ann treed their first coon in the biggest sycamore tree around.
Poor Billy had told his dogs to “just put one up a tree and I’ll do the rest.” He decided he’d cut the tree down if it took him a year. Billy worked on cutting down the tree all night and the next day until finally a breeze came up and helped topple the tree. Dan and Ann got their coon.
Ruben and Rainie Pritchard are two of the meanest boys around. Being jealous of the reputation that Billy and his dogs have earned for their hunting skills, they challenge Billy to hunt down the ghost coon that no one can catch. When Dan and Little Ann tree the coon, Billy decided he didn’t want to kill it. Ruben started to beat up on Billy. At the same time, Ruben and Rainie’s dog started fighting with Old Dan and Little Ann. Ruben grabbed Billy’s ax to go after Billy’s dogs, fell on it, and was killed. This was hard for Billy to accept. After a time he went to Ruben’s grave to lay flowers.
Billy’s grandfather entered him in a coon-hunting championship. Most of the hunters were adults with the best gear and dogs. When Billy walked around the camp, he heard them talking about him and his dogs. He hadn’t realized they were famous. On the first day Little Ann won the contest for best looking dog and they won a silver cup. After two nights hunting, despite a blizzard and Billy’s grandfather breaking his ankle, Billy won the gold cup and $300.00. He gave his sisters the gold and silver cups and the money to his mother.
After Billy arrived home, he and his dogs continued hunting. One night Old Dan and Little Ann treed a mountain lion. Old Dan attacked the mountain lion when it went after them and Little Ann tried to help him. Billy grabbed his ax hoping to save his dogs, but instead they had to save him. When it was finally over, and the mountain lay dead, Old Dan was badly hurt and bleeding to death. He died the next day. Little Ann was so sad she died a few days later. Billy buried both dogs on the hillside.
When his parents decided to move to the city with the money he and his dogs had earned, Billy went to their graves one last time before he left. He saw something he couldn’t believe. There was a beautiful red fern growing between their graves. He remembered the old Indian legend about the red fern. A little Indian boy and girl were lost in a blizzard and froze to death. When their bodies were found, a beautiful red fern had grown up between them. Only an angel could plant a red fern. The spot was sacred. Billy felt he was finally ready to leave for the town
Plot Of Where The Red Fern Grows Novel. (2024, Feb 11). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/plot-of-where-the-red-fern-grows-novel-essay
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